Did the waiting intervals actually last 90 seconds in the Greatest Royal Rumble match?

WWE stated that there would be 90-second waiting intervals between each entrant in the Greatest Royal Rumble match. How well did WWE stick to that claim? Here are the waiting times between all 48 buzzers, in chronological order:

• 1m 31s: Buzzer 1 - Sin Cara
• 1m 51s: Buzzer 2 - Curtis Axel
• 1m 20s: Buzzer 3 - Mark Henry
• 1m 27s: Buzzer 4 - Mike Kanellis
• 1m 19s: Buzzer 5 - Hiroki Sumi
• 1m 50s: Buzzer 6 - Viktor
• 1m 18s: Buzzer 7 - Kofi Kingston
• 1m 15s: Buzzer 8 - Tony Nese
• 1m 09s: Buzzer 9 - Dash Wilder
• 1m 13s: Buzzer 10 - Hornswoggle
• 1m 48s: Buzzer 11 - Primo
• 1m 14s: Buzzer 12 - Xavier Woods
• 2m 22s: Buzzer 13 - Bo Dallas
• 1m 10s: Buzzer 14 - Kurt Angle
• 1m 36s: Buzzer 15 - Scott Dawson
• 1m 09s: Buzzer 16 - Goldust
• 1m 12s: Buzzer 17 - Konnor
• 1m 19s: Buzzer 18 - Elias
• 1m 47s: Buzzer 19 - Luke Gallows
• 1m 33s: Buzzer 20 - Rhyno
• 1m 08s: Buzzer 21 - Drew Gulak
• 1m 14s: Buzzer 22 - Tucker Knight
• 1m 11s: Buzzer 23 - Bobby Roode
• 1m 38s: Buzzer 24 - Fandango
• 1m 06s: Buzzer 25 - Chad Gable
• 1m 03s: Buzzer 26 - Rey Mysterio
• 1m 30s: Buzzer 27 - Mojo Rawley
• 1m 17s: Buzzer 28 - Tyler Breeze
• 1m 28s: Buzzer 29 - Big E
• 1m 34s: Buzzer 30 - Karl Anderson
• 1m 13s: Buzzer 31 - Apollo Crews
• 1m 21s: Buzzer 32 - Roderick Strong
• 1m 15s: Buzzer 33 - Randy Orton
• 1m 26s: Buzzer 34 - Heath Slater
• 1m 13s: Buzzer 35 - Babatunde
• 1m 04s: Buzzer 36 - Baron Corbin
• 1m 37s: Buzzer 37 - Titus O’Neil
• 1m 16s: Buzzer 38 - Dan Matha
• 1m 22s: Buzzer 39 - Braun Strowman
• 1m 47s: Buzzer 40 - Tye Dillinger
• 2m 04s: Buzzer 41 - Curt Hawkins
• 1m 58s: Buzzer 42 - Bobby Lashley
• 2m 09s: Buzzer 43 - Great Khali
• 2m 07s: Buzzer 44 - Kevin Owens
• 1m 18s: Buzzer 45 - Shane McMahon
• 2m 10s: Buzzer 46 - Shelton Benjamin
• 1m 33s: Buzzer 47 - Big Cass
• 1m 44s: Buzzer 48 - Chris Jericho

Only eight of the 48 waiting periods fell within five seconds of the 90-second goal.

The average waiting period was 1m 29s and the median time was between 1m 21s and 1m 22s. This was a match where the average waiting period happened to fall in the right range, but very few individual waiting periods actually landed in that neighborhood.

14 of the waiting periods lasted 74 seconds or less, which means they fell closer to 60 seconds than 90 seconds.

The waiting periods preceding Buzzers 7 through 10 (this included the entries of Viktor, Kingston, Nese, Wilder) each lasted between 1m 09s and 1m 18s.

Only one of the waiting periods that preceded Buzzers 21 through 26 (this included the entries of Rhyno, Gulak, Knight, Roode, Fandango, and Gable) landed above the range of 1m 03s to 1m 14s. Bobby Roode was the only entry into the match during that span who was given extra time to work with (1m 38s) before the next entry arrived.

The waiting period that captured Babatunde’s entry into the match only lasted 1m 04s.

Five different waiting periods lasted 2m 00s or longer. Six additional waiting periods lasted longer than 1m 45s, which means they were closer to two minutes than 90 seconds.

The waiting periods that included the entrances of Sumi (1m 50s), Hornswoggle (1m 48s), Angle (1m 36s), and Elias (1m 47s) lasted longer than most, presumably so there would be enough time for these guys to get their spots in (or in the case of Elias, his extra slow walk down to the ring while talking to the audience).

The longest waiting period of the night lasted 2m 22s, which began when Xavier Woods made his entrance. They did the Kofi escape spot, and the New Day then danced with Tony Nese.

The other waiting periods in excess of two minutes all occurred during entrant numbers in the 40’s.

This included a 2m 04s waiting period where Braun had to clear the ring before Curt Hawkins made his appearance. The following waiting period, where Braun chased Hawkins down and tossed him out, lasted 1m 58s. This was immediately followed by a 2m 09s period where Lashley joined the match and took out Elias, and also saw Bryan lay in some corner dropkicks to both Lashley and Strowman. That was followed up with the Great Khali and his near minute-long walk to the ring, so that period lasted 2m 07s.

A little bit later Shane McMahon joined the match. That waiting period lasted 2m 10s, and it featured Shane’s putrid offense as well as Kevin Owens being victimized by double team Yes Kicks.

In a perfectly timed match, the final buzzer (signaling Jericho’s entrance) would have gone off 72m 00s after the start of the match. In reality, this buzzer went off at 71m 09s. So all the madness essentially evened out thanks to some extra long waiting periods at the end of the match, starting with Buzzer 40.

Overall, WWE did a terrible job with sticking to the 90-second rule. However, one might argue that it makes sense to shorten time for the lower card guys while extending it for the bigger stars, so WWE handled it well.

What do you think, Cagesiders?